Cruz Watch: Fox News, immigration and vampires

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, made headlines this weekend for condemning President Barack Obama’s response to the southern border crisis and inspiring a scene in an HBO show.

Cruz toured a border patrol station Saturday in McAllen with Rep. Randy Weber, R-Beaumont, and Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Tyler, and spoke with conservative radio host Glenn Beck. He also stopped by a church that has provided food and clothing to migrants released from detention.

The senator later made an appearance on Fox News Sunday, where he talked about his legislation to prevent the president from using taxpayer funds to expand Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

The federal program allows some immigrants who came to the United States as children to request that the government delay any moves to deport them for two years. If the government approves their request, which can be renewed after two years, those undocumented immigrants are eligible for work authorization, though it does not give them legal status.

Cruz argues that DACA has encouraged families in Central America, especially Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, to send their children flooding into the United States. About 51,000 unaccompanied minors have illegally entered the country this past fiscal year, and authorities expect that tally to grow to 90,000 in the coming months.

In his interview with Fox, taped before his visit to Texas, the senator said that “the cause of this crisis is the promise of amnesty.” He said Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., were “holding these kids ransom” in the hopes of passing an immigration reform bill.

“They don’t want to fix the problem. They want to keep having children come in, in a situation where they’re brutalized,” Cruz said.

Sunday night, Cruz earned a mention during the latest episode of “True Blood,” a drama series in its final season. Two characters, both vampires, attended a fundraising gala for the senator in the George W. Bush Presidential Library. A photo of Cruz in The Dallas Morning News with a fake headline appears briefly on camera.

“Of all the horrible things I’ve seen in the last hundred years, this could be the most disturbing,” Pam De Beaufort (Kristin Bauer van Straten) says as she enters the gala.

Cruz posted a reaction on Facebook and Twitter on Tuesday, writing, “Of all the places I never thought to be mentioned, HBO’s True Blood vampire show would have to be near the top of the list.”

“Sunday night, they aired a misogynist and profanity-ridden episode where Texas Republicans are murdered attending a ‘Ted Cruz fundraiser,'” he wrote on Facebook. “Well, I’m sorry to have lost the vampire vote, but am astonished (and amused) that HBO is suggesting that hard-core leftists are blood-sucking fiends….”

Two hours later, the senator posted again on Twitter.

“Then again, I guess I never had a chance w/ the vampire vote since the dead tend to vote overwhelmingly for Dems,” he wrote.

A screenshot of the fictional headline in the episode of “True Blood.”